About Catalyst Collaborative@MIT

The Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT) is a unique collaboration between MIT and Underground Railway Theater (URT), a professional company with 30 years experience creating theater through interdisciplinary inquiry and engaging community. CC@MIT is dedicated to creating and presenting plays that deepen public understanding about science, while simultaneously providing an artistic and emotional experience not available in other forms of dialogue about science.

Through performances and conversations with scientists and artists, CC@MIT:

- engages audiences in thinking about themes in science and technology of social and ethical concern;
- provides insight into the culture of science and the impact of that culture on our society;
- and examines the human condition through the lens of science and technology that intersects our lives, and the lives of the scientists whose work changes our world and their own.

2011-2012 EVENTS MAINSTAGE:

Remembering HM
by Wes Savick
April 12—May 13
Central Square Theater

STAGED READINGS
Remembering HM
Reading of excerpts from the work-in-progress, followed by conversation with artists and guest neuroscientists.
· October 15, MIT Family Weekend
· Feb. 15, 5:30—7:00 pm, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

And the Sun Stood Still
by Dava Sobel
A new play about Copernicus by the author of Galileo’s Daughter
Central Square Theater
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m.
Conversation afterwards with Dava Sobel and
Copernicus scholar Owen Gingerich

CC@MIT HIGHLIGHTS
· The National Institutes of Health commissioned CC@MIT to create a play to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. From Orchids to Octopi – an evolutionary love story, by Melinda Lopez, premiered in 2010, and was awarded “Best New Play,” Independent Reviewers of New England.
· CC@MIT has been involved in a 4-year youth science theater apprenticeship program– a collaboration with the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics.
· CC@MIT presented a return engagement of Gioia DiCari‘s Truth Values – one woman’s romp through the MIT’s male math maze, in September 2010.
· CC@MIT helped launch a new science theater course at MIT in 2011, bringing in guest artists and scientists to help students research and write short plays inspired by neuroscience.

ONGOING ACTIVITIES CC@MIT:
· commissions playwrights and scientists to create new plays together;
· engages audiences with scientists and artists through pre-show symposia and post-show conversations;
· performs at MIT and Central Square Theater, a new professional venue steps from the MIT campus;
· offers tours of science theater repertoire;
· collaborates with the Cambridge Science Festival and the MIT Museum;
· engages MIT students through internships and a new science theater course;
· engages in youth apprenticeship projects mentoring underserved teenagers with artists and scientists; and
· creates professional development workshops for teachers and new curricular materials for youth and children.

To support CC@MIT through MIT, please visit the MIT Giving site here.